You know that TV ad where a bullet is fired through a Master Lock padlock to show how tough it is?

Pauline Davis feels like the company where she worked 18 years has aimed that same high-powered rifle at her retiree benefits, especially the $10,000 in life insurance she hoped would pay to bury her someday.

The benefits have sustained, as the commercial voice-over says, "considerable damage."

Milwaukee-based Master Lock Co. sent "hey sorry" letters to Davis and hundreds of other retirees earlier this year, saying it was dropping their company-paid life insurance on Aug. 31, along with the contribution toward their Medicare Part B premiums, which for Davis is a loss of $104 a month.

Life insurance is a strange form of betting against yourself. You hope it won't pay out for a long, long time. But when you reach age 87 as Davis has, it feels like that time is getting closer.

So to have it yanked away is jarring. "Why couldn't they tell me before I got this old?" she said. "They just don't care."

Master Lock spokeswoman Elizabeth Castro told me she couldn't comment because this matter is in litigation. In a lawsuit, Master Lock is asking a judge to affirm its rights to end the benefits.

In the letter to retirees, Master Lock says without much specificity that the Affordable Care Act has dramatically changed the health care landscape, and the company must adapt its approach to stay competitive.

The United Auto Workers, which represents Master Lock employees, filed an answer to the company's lawsuit Tuesday and released a statement from regional director Ron McInroy. It reads in part:

"The UAW believes that Master Lock retirees should continue to receive the modest retirement benefits for which they worked throughout their careers at Master Lock. Master Lock and its parent company, Fortune Brands, are profitable and their top executives are very well compensated. The company can easily afford to continue to provide the benefits on which the retirees depend."

Davis, a widow and great-grandmother living in a tidy bungalow on Milwaukee's north side, worked on the assembly line making combination locks at Master Lock from 1974 to 1992 and then retired at age 65.

She gets a pension check from the company but worries how safe that is.

"If they can get away with this, what if they want to cut my pension?" she said. "The people who retired, we built that company."

Davis learned that active Master Lock employees previously eligible for retiree life insurance and Medicare supplements will instead get payments of up to $7,000. Again, it strikes her as unfair to those already out the door.

The good news for retirees is that they can convert the life insurance to a personal policy. The bad news for an 87-year-old like Davis is that the premium for $10,000 coverage is nearly $200 a month.

"That's a lot to get life insurance that I thought I already had. It's an exorbitant amount of money that I can't afford. This is just ridiculous to me," she said.

"It's not right the way they're doing it," Davis continued. "I worked hard for the Master Lock Company. I went to work every day. They cut me off like I was never there."

It's a cautionary tale for any of us who think our employee or retiree benefits are a lock.